woof

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The set of yarns carried by the shuttle of a loom which are placed crosswise at right angles to and interlaced with the warp; the weft.

   When the plage of leproſye is in a cloth: […] that cloth ſhalbe burnt, ether warpe or wolfe, whether it be wollen or lynen or any thynge that is made of ſkynne where the plage is, […].

2. 2
   noun

   A woven fabric; also, the texture of a fabric.

   [T]his is no lavv unto the vvoof of the neat Retiarie Spider, vvhich ſeems to vveave vvithout tranſverſion, and by the union of right lines to make out a continued ſurface, vvhich is beyond the common art of Textury, and may ſtill nettle Minerva the Godeſſe of that myſtery.

3. 3
   noun

   The thread or yarn used to form the weft of woven fabric; the fill, the weft.

   [F]irſt I muſt put off / Theſe my skie robes ſpun out of Iris vvooffe, / And take the vveeds and likeneſſe of a Svvaine, […].

4. 4
   noun

   Synonym of weaving (“the process of making woven material on a loom”).

   Mean time Alcyone (his Fate unknovvn) / Computes hovv many Nights he had been gone, / […] / Againſt the promis'd Time provides vvith care, / And haſtens in the VVoof the Robes he vvas to vvear: / And for her Self employs another Loom, / Nevv-dreſs'd to meet her Lord returning home, / Flatt'ring her Heart vvith Joys that never vvere to come: […].

Simplified etymology

Woof, recorded from the early 19th century as an imitation of a dog's bark, is the same sound-imitative word as the dialect form waff, “to yelp.” That dialect form also gave rise to the verb waffle.

The noun is derived from Middle English wof, oof, owf (“threads in a piece of woven fabric at right angles to the warp, weft, woof; also sometimes the warp; transverse filaments of a spider web”) [and other forms] (the forms beginning with w were influenced by warp and weft), from Old English ōwef, āwef, from ō-, ā- (prefix meaning ‘away; from; off; out’) + *wef (“web”) (only attested in the form gewef (“woof”); from wefan (“to weave”), from Proto-West Germanic *weban (“to weave”), from Proto-Germanic *webaną (“to weave”), from Proto-Indo-European *webʰ- (“to braid; to weave”)). The verb is de...

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary